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Hello to all from Milwaukee, WI!

My name is Paul & I'm a new KZ1300 owner & KZ1300.com member. I bought my bike from a private party not far from my house & it had been garaged, but hasn't ran or been licensed since 2002. It has 17,000 miles, is very complete & is in original condition including paint. I stated working on it this weekend & only get the emergency flashers to work, including the indicators on the gauge. I made sure the seat lock was in the horizontal position as was noted on this site & still nothing at all lights up or works. I changed the main fuse too with no success. So I will be spending some time trouble shooting the electrical issue before moving on to anything else on the bike. After 13 years of sitting I'm sure rebuilding carbs will also be in my future.

If anyone has any suggestions on some things I could check or do first on the electrical issue it would be much appreciated! I'm looking forward to the many resources I believe this site has to offer & interacting with other KZ1300 owners in my quest to bring my very cool KZ back to life so I can enjoy many miles of riding enjoyment!

Thank you to all!

Paul

One of the best facts I learned as an electronics tech in the Coast Guard was to take any malfunctioning circuit and find the mid-point and test there first. If you have power, then go to the halfway point farther downstream (away from the power) and test there. If there isn't any power yet, go halfway back towards the battery. Keep doing this until you narrow it down.

Welcome to the site Paul. Nice to hear of another resurrection initiated. Love to see a fleet of these machines out there ruling the earth.
The boys like to see eye candy so please post some pics when you get a chance. (Seems to be one of the first requests we have on this site.)

One of the best tools you can have made for yourself is a large copy of the wiring diagram for your bike. I can't stand trying to follow the wiring diagram on the manual. Copy the page of the wiring diagram from the electronic version located on the home page to a thumb drive and take it to your local print shop. Here in North America "Staples Business Depot" would be my suggestion. Have them blow it up to 11" X 17" and then have them laminate it. That way you can mark it up with dry erasable markers as you verify the circuits, and Oh it a hell of a lot easier to read and follow. After your done with the wiring repairs, you can clean up the diagram and hang it on the wall. Makes for nice eye candy in the shop and reminds you of the time you fixed the old girl and got her back on the road.
Good luck with your endeavors and remember we're here to help.

Kawboy

Check your switch is in the right horizontal position

Hi Paul,
Hope you get your electrics gremlins resolved quickly.
I also recently had an electrics issue where I was getting no power when turning the bike on: checked fuses, then went through the circuits as Kawboy suggested, but after some serious head scratching, mine turned out to be a broken solder connection on the main contact within the ignition switch: if all else fails it might be worth checking out.

Cheers Tim